The Indians just had three recent signees from the Dominican Republic get suspended for pre-signing PED use. The team is as mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore. Indians’ scouting director John Mirabelli:

“I’ve got no sympathy for these guys. They broke the law. They
fraudulently tried to misrepresent their abilities to us to get a
higher signing bonus. They were all educated on this drug testing for a
long time . . . “We see a player, we evaluate him. We verbally agree on a contract. Then
we say you’re taking a drug test before we sign the contract. It’s an
added expense to the process, but we’re going to try and include our own
procedures.”

Given the investments involved the Indians are probably pretty smart to do this. These guys were apparently kind of dumb about the timing of it all, but you have to figure that there are a number of amateurs down there who juice up while being scouted, give teams an inflated sense of their strength and speed and then go off the stuff and reveal themselves to be lesser players once minor league testing kicks in.

The problem, of course, is that not all amateurs are going to fit that profile or, alternatively, may juice pre-signing but still wind up being fantastic players after they cycle off. Those guys may want to avoid the Indians — and maybe the “five or six other teams” who are doing this, according to the article — for fear of testing positive for PEDs. This, of course, would ultimately work to the benefit of teams who don’t test prior to signing.

I guess if I were the Indians and the handful of other team doing this, I’d push hard to get Major League Baseball as a whole to join in on a pre-signing testing regime rather than go it alone.

The Cubs wrapped up a four-game series against the Reds at Wrigley Field on Thursday afternoon, suffering a 13-10 loss to split the set. They’ll match up again against the Reds next week for a three-game series in Cincinnati. That’s good news for Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant, because that means he’ll get to see Reds first baseman Joey Votto some more.

As CSN Chicago’s Patrick Mooney reports, Bryant has grown quite fond of Votto. Bryant has already won a World Series ring, a Rookie of the Year Award, and an MVP Award, but he still looks up to Votto. According to Bryant, Votto is “the best player ever.” He added, ““He’s my favorite player. I love watching him. I love talking to him, just picking his brain. He gets a lot of (heat) about his walks and working at-bats and some people want him to swing at more pitches. But, gosh, I mean, he does an unbelievable job. You know that he’s going to give you a great at-bat every time he goes up there. It’s definitely a guy that I look up to and I can learn from.”

Bryant said that Votto is “a future Hall of Famer, that’s for sure.”

Bryant also explained how his approach changed by watching Votto. He said that in his rookie season, he was “swinging at everything.” Votto, however, is “aggressive, but he’s not going to swing at a pitch until he wants it.”

Indeed, in Bryant’s rookie season, he struck out in nearly 31 percent of his 650 plate appearances. This season, he has struck out in only 19 percent of his PA. His walk rate has also increased by more than 2.5 percent since his rookie campaign. Compared to last year, Bryant is down in HR and RBI, but his average is the same, his on-base percentage is markedly better, and his slugging percentage is only down by a minute amount.

Diamondbacks second baseman Daniel Descalso hit his team’s third inside-the-park home run of the season during Thursday’s 4-0 win over the Astros. In the top of the fourth inning, with the score 1-0 and the bases empty, Descalso ripped a 1-0, 83 MPH change-up to right-center field. The ball caromed off the wall, heading towards left field, which sent center Jake Marisnick on the chase. Marisnick tried to pick up the ball with his glove, but dropped it, which sealed Descalso’s destiny for an inside-the-parker.

It had only been five days since the Diamondbacks’ last inside-the-park home run. David Peralta hit one against the Cubs on August 12. Ketel Marte legged out his club’s first ITPHR on July 26 against the Braves.

As ESPN Stats & Info notes, the Diamondbacks have three as a team, which is amazing because the other 29 teams have hit seven combined.